Elections: What Ifs

I just attended a crop insurance industry conference where one of the speakers was my friend, David Wasserman, of the Cook Political Report. He predicted the Senate would end up 51 to 49 in favor of the Democrats after Nov. 8 elections, and that the Democrats would pick up 10 to 20 seats in the House, leaving control with the Republicans because the Democrats would fall short of the net gain of 30 seats needed to “control” the House.

I also spoke at the confab and said while I usually agree with most of what David says, when it came to the Senate outcome I said he had the numbers right but not the party. I still see Republicans keeping control of the Senate… I added that I “weakly predict” that outcome. Several Senate races are very close but eventually there are winners. A 50-50 split would be controlled by the party winning the White House. And unless Clinton implodes (unlikely), the safest prediction is that Trump will still be Trump and that means he will shout out ever-more outrageous comments up until election day. While more than a few voters dislike Clinton, they can’t stomach Trump.

Wasserman is the expert on elections (notably the House as he is House editor of The Cook Political Report), but he’s an ever-so-smart, on-the-rise political prognosticator.

So why do I think the GOP could keep control of the Senate? Hillary Clinton and split tickets. The upcoming votes will likely see a boost from the recent past in the number of Americans splitting their voting tickets. To keep a “check” on Clinton, voters will or should want a Republican-controlled Congress.

Another interesting topic is next year’s vote for Speaker of the House. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is the current speaker. While many if not most would say he will again go for the top spot, others say there are some developments that could make him think otherwise.

Consider the coming Fiscal Year 2017 budget issues. The budget is now under a stopgap spending plan into early December. Ryan knows that in the recent past, omnibus spending bills got then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) into all sorts of problems with his arch-conservative GOP colleagues. Enough so that he eventually decided to depart Congress.

While Ryan definitely will not depart Congress, some say he could have second thoughts of running again for Speaker if he feels there is a need for some Democratic members’ votes to again win the post.

If not Ryan, then who? No one really has the front-slot. And while it is very, very unlikely to occur, a House speaker does not necessarily have to be a current member of the House (do a search on the topic and you will see that this is a murky issue and that there never has been a non-member chosen speaker). But it’s a least fun to think who would be the outside person the GOP would call on. Current Trump running mate Mike Pence of Indiana. How about John Kasich, a longtime former representative from Ohio.

The timing of an omnibus is also an interesting topic because should I be wrong and Wasserman correct that the Senate next year will be controlled by the Democrats, sources say current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) won’t be so keen on getting thorny budget issues addressed before Hillary Clinton takes office… let her begin her term in office with a not-so-clear slate, the reasoning goes.

And still another omnibus budget issue topic is the push by some in agriculture to include language that would fix some of the farm bill problems such as the lack of an adequate safety net for cotton and perhaps some dairy policy changes. Those will eventually come, but if the omnibus is deferred until next year, the ag-related issues may or will likely be deferred as well.

Another year-end issue could also be punted into 2017 – expiring tax incentives, including the biodiesel tax incentive.

Bottom line. Nov. 8 elections results will not just be about Trump and Clinton. They will also help clear the murky air around the fate of several lingering budget and policy issues – including the unlikely push for a lame-duck vote on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

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